


Take My Brain (Take What Remains)

by mars_morpheus



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: And yeets off to get him some revenge without asking questions, BAMF Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce is Sixteen, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, In which Jerome just kinda waltzes outta the GCPD, Jerome Is Seventeen, M/M, Pure Teenage Dumbasses, Resurrection Hurts Folks, S3 AU, Without causing a scene with Lee, valeyne - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27571288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mars_morpheus/pseuds/mars_morpheus
Relationships: Jerome Valeska/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 18
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

Was this the light people always talked about going into? It was so bright. Burn-your-eyes white. He closed his eyes against it - which reminded him that there was a _him_ , and that he had eyes to close, which was sort of surprising for some reason he couldn't put his finger on. Assuming he also had fingers.

The idea of himself seemed to lead to a growing awareness of his body. He twitched a finger, and it landed back on a smooth, cold surface. He was lying on his back. Oh. Everything hurt. Oh god, why did everything hurt? Where was he hurt? You couldn't just be hurt everywhere. You could get pretty close, he knew that, but he was pretty sure if you could be hurt absolutely everywhere he would've been already. Although he didn't know how he knew that. He felt like he was bruised on the inside, and on fire. And cold, which didn't seem possible. He was cold in spite of feeling like he was on fire. Something was wrong.

He opened his eyes again, and the air around him was cold enough to sting them. There was the light again. White, with a brownish spot in the top right. He blinked a couple of times, and the spot got clearer. That wasn't light - what was that? It was just white rectangles held together with white-painted metal frames. The brown spot was a stain. He knew what that looked like, it looked like -

Give him a second.

It looked like a ceiling, that's what. So where was he?

A steady clicking got louder and louder, and then it sounded like a door opened and closed. He closed his eyes quickly. Somebody was in here, wherever 'here' was. Wearing heels, sounded like. What did it mean if it took him longer to figure out what a ceiling looked like than to recognise the sound of someone walking in heels? He heard them a lot, didn't he? That felt true. Something brushed past his mind, that clicking stomping past him while he kept his head down to stay out of her way. Though who 'she' was escaped him. He knew it, he just had to focus.

Alcohol on her breath. _Stop it, please Mom, no stop-please-no -_ Don't cry, crying just makes her madder. Only kids cry anyway, she's right about that - _Useless sonuvabitch, waste of fucking air, I shoulda cracked your skull soon as you were born -_

He had just enough presence of mind to keep from flinching. So he had a mom, unfortunately. _Not anymore_ , his brain supplied, which he guessed was better. Was she dead, then? No idea. He wondered if he had any other family.

 _You're the psychic, do I kill?_ _You will be a curse upon Gotham -_

So that was a yes on whether he had a father. Asshole. He didn't know _why_ exactly he was an asshole, but he was sure of it. He also got the feeling that his father was also dead. Or just not around. Or something.

It was disconcerting, not being able to remember much of anything. What about the last thing he'd done before ending up here - wherever 'here' was?

He remembered a name. Brucie, he recalled calling him, some short kid with dark hair and serious eyes. They were up on a stage, and then there was somebody talking behind him: "That's enough," turning around and - _Galavan_. Punching a knife into his neck. Blood in his mouth, so hot, running down into his eye - falling with Galavan still holding onto him - Brucie running off the stage - breathing getting harder and harder. Everything just stopping. 

He was dead, wasn't he?

Or, not dead anymore. Somehow. Hurt like hell, whatever had brought him back.

The heels clicked away and out of the door again. He worked up as much energy as he could get together, then shifted himself over to roll upright. Open space met him; he barely managed to catch himself, eyes shooting open, before his head crashed into the ground. He stayed down for a moment. Everything hurt _more_ now. Moving sucked.

Finally, he pushed himself up to sitting, then pulled himself up with the table he'd been on, so he was standing shakily. His legs didn't want to support him. He breathed heavily, shutting his eyes to cope with the pain.

There was a file folder next to where his head had been. He opened it and recognised the mugshot printed on the first page. That was him. Jerome Valeska, seventeen years old. It said he was a killer, which felt true even if he couldn't think of what he'd done. He'd think about it later. He looked around the room and quickly came to the conclusion that he was somewhere inside a police station. Not good. He had to get out of here.

Jerome took a few stumbling steps. There was a mirror over on one wall; he wasn't sure he wanted to see himself, but he had to know how death had treated him. He stepped into view and frowned at himself. There was no way he'd had any say in what he was wearing: it was a skintight black leotard-type thing with what looked like plug-in ports along his torso. His hair was bright orange and sort of grown out, like he hadn't had a haircut in a while. Which he figured he hadn't. White bandages covered the left half of his face almost totally, and he decided not to find out why just yet. Instead, he stopped looking at the mirror and started looking for how to escape.

A closet in the corner had one door half-open. He looked inside and found, miraculously, a police uniform. Why that was in here, Jerome didn't know, but it was lucky. He put it on over the leotard thing, body feeling stiff enough that he would be lucky if getting stuff on didn't end up hurting a lot, never mind figuring out how to take stuff off. It took a while. Still, finally, he had the shirt and pants on, and he was negotiating his way into bending over to put on the shoes.

At least several minutes later, the shoes were on. He stood back up and walked, almost totally normally this time, back to the mirror. The pants were too big, but they worked. He pulled them up to his waist and put the hat on his head, covering up his hair. If he kept his head down and walked fast, he just might blend in. And he'd take his file and a scalpel with him, just in case.

It wasn't until he was resting against the wall of the alley outside the police station, cold air catching in his throat, that Jerome realised that he didn't know where to go next, or what to do. Kill Galavan, probably. Yeah, he'd get some revenge and find out whether or not he really could kill. See how that old bastard liked being dead. He pushed off the wall, holding on tight to the scalpel in his pocket and the file under his shirt, and went (who knew where) to go and kill Theo Galavan.


	2. Chapter 2

Jerome wandered around the city, finding that the streets were very unfamiliar considering that he assumed he must have been from here. It was chilly out. Without having any way to tell the time, he thought it had been a couple of hours since he’d gotten out of the police station. He got some funny looks from people who were confused to see some random cop walking around with bandages on his face, but nobody seemed to recognise him as a killer. There had been no sign of Galavan, or anything to do with him, yet. To be fair, Jerome hardly remembered anything about him except for a general appearance and the fact that he was about to land himself in a lot of hurt. Still, resurrection seemed to take a lot out of a guy. He was getting tired, and the ache in his body wasn’t improving, especially as his throat kept on seizing up for no reason and making him cough.

Finally, he gave up on looking by himself. He approached a little stand selling newspapers and knocked on the desk area, startling the salesman, who was crouched down doing something underneath.

“Afternoon, officer,” the old man greeted him. “What can I help you with?”

Wow, he really wasn’t questioning the cop outfit, was he?

“Yeah, uh, I’m lookin’ for a guy,” Jerome told him, falling into a New-York-sounding accent that he was pretty sure wasn’t how he normally talked. His voice was hoarse; he’d muttered a little to himself earlier, but speaking louder bothered his throat.

“Did somebody get robbed?” The man sounded genuinely concerned.

“Nah -” He had to be vague about this. “I’m just lookin’ for him.” That was a historically shitty excuse. “Tall guy, big ears. Name of Galavan, Theo Galavan.”

The man looked at him askance, eyes flicking over Jerome’s bandages. “Theo Galavan?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. You know where I can find him?”

“Sir… Theo Galavan’s dead.”

No he wasn’t.

“What do you mean, he’s dead?” Jerome snapped. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. Name’s Galavan, rich guy, slimy bastard.”

“Yes, I heard you,” the man said, bending over to reach for something below the desk. He sounded annoyed, and Jerome fumbled in his pocket for the scalpel. “Look.”

He slid what must have been an out-of-date paper over the desk. There, on the front cover, was Galavan, or at least it looked like what Jerome remembered. The headline read, _“Theo Galavan Found Dead By River”_. That wasn’t him, he was sure. It would sound at least a little familiar if it was. The date at the top was October something.

“What month is it now?” he asked, disbelieving.

“It’s September.” The man was more than a little weirded out. “It’s been almost a year, it’s really lucky I had that paper at all, but I just couldn’t get finished the crossword in all that time -”

That meant it had been probably more than a year since Jerome had died. He blinked. What was he going to do now that his only plan was no good? It wasn’t like he could just go home or anything. Who knew if he even had a home, and he guessed he wouldn’t anyway after being dead a year. He flipped through the rest of the paper half-heartedly.

Another photo caught his eye. That was another familiar face, the kid who’d been there when he died, what was he called? _Bruce Wayne_ , claimed the description under the picture. _Brucie_. Looking at his face, Jerome felt a familiar sense of curiosity about him, and for some reason an undeniable urge - almost a need - to put a knife to his throat. Like closure or something. Not that he could remember why.

Well, he figured, at least he had a new plan.

He could be pretty positive that he was not an optimist, but he could definitely appreciate a silver lining. That silver lining was that he knew how to steal a car. Jumpstarting it and getting going had been a matter of muscle memory, a lot easier than he would’ve expected.

Actually driving was an entirely different story.

He didn’t have to wear the police uniform’s hat any more, at least. It wouldn’t have mattered had he not figured out how to turn on the nighttime headlights at the last minute before totally losing visibility as he left the city. The sun had set quickly; now, Jerome was speeding along empty rural roads in the dark, hoping he was headed in the right direction. Brucie was apparently rich enough to live someplace called “Wayne Manor”, which he’d been sort of vaguely shown the way to, but which sounded hard to miss.

The car was quiet, and aside from the minimal noise of the engine, he was driving in silence. The thought crossed his mind that he might never remember anything more. And even if he did, what would he do? He was a wanted murderer, even if he couldn’t remember killing anyone. Did he want to be a killer? Never mind, there was no point wondering that. But he didn’t have anywhere to go or anything to do with himself. After Brucie, there was nobody for him to find. He didn’t want to turn himself in either: something told him they’d send him somewhere he’d been before, and the thought somehow made his chest feel tight.

He shook his head, clearing out that train of thought. One step at a time. Whatever happened after he found Wayne Manor was what happened. His hands were tight around the steering wheel.

Finally, the car’s headlights glanced off of a metal gate. Beyond that, he could see a big house pretty far back. He got out of the car and, slipping through the bars in the gate, hoped there weren’t any big dogs or anything. A scalpel was only going to do him so much good.

He approached the house, glad for the lack of much light in the yard. Hopefully, he also knew how to break into places. He crept around the side and squinted through the darkness to look for a way to get in. Ah - there was an open window up on the second floor. Grabbing onto a drainpipe, he pushed himself sort of clumsily up the wall. If he had absolutely anything else to do, he wouldn’t chase this kind of exercise, especially with his body hurting, but here he was. His hand slipped off the pipe just as his other hand latched onto the sill of the open window. He almost fell, but miraculously he managed to get himself up onto the ledge and then inside.

He was in a hallway. Who had windows in a hallway? Well, rich people, he guessed. Anyway, he’d better keep moving - he didn’t know who was here. The cop’s shoes weren’t particularly quiet, but he tried to keep the noise down as he walked down the dark wooden floor. Most of the doors he passed were shut; he kept turning corners and finding nothing but more hallway. The glimpses into open rooms that he did catch didn’t tell him anything about where Brucie was, though they did seem to be full of fancy furniture and things that probably had weird names but were really just tchotchkes. He was starting to suspect he was going in circles.

Seemed to him that if you could get lost in your house, that was a design flaw. Which struck him as a familiar thought, or something about it felt familiar anyway, which was weird.

Finally, he caught a glimpse of light coming from someplace around another corner. He snuck up to the open door, peering around the frame, and found that the room was some kind of fancy office or library or something. Nobody was inside. The lights were on, though, so he thought if Brucie was going to be anywhere, here was a good place to start. || He kept as quiet as possible coming in.

Luckily, there was nobody hiding around any corners he hadn’t been able to see. Jerome walked in a circle, turning to look around the room. A draft came in from an open window with curtains blowing in the breeze. There was a fire going in a big old-fashioned fireplace. It was surrounded by bookshelves, which looked to him like a major fire hazard. Probably didn’t matter, though. Rich people. He shrugged to himself. The big wooden desk in the middle of the room was covered with papers full of messy, loopy handwriting; it was the kind of disorder that didn’t really count unless you had your life really together. A mug sat on one of the pages. It smelled like tea, and it was still hot - somebody was definitely coming back. He grinned and got ready to wait.

He hid under the edge of the desk, close to the fire. The heat was nice - he tended to be colder than made much sense, and it was fall, after all. Besides, he’d just come back from the dead. Cut him some slack. The crackling sound brought a vague memory into his head of lighting fires inside metal barrels for warmth at night. Warming up, his sore muscles relaxed a little. A downside of the heat was that it was going to make him extra tired if he didn’t get moving again pretty soon.

The sound of approaching footsteps startled him in spite of how soft they were: the kid walked quietly, and he hadn’t heard him until he was already in the room. He grabbed the scalpel and waited to jump out.

“Selina?”

What?

“I know you’re there,” Brucie said, a smile clear in his voice.

Oh - he must think there was somebody else in the room. Who he thought it was, Jerome didn’t know, but he didn’t seem to suspect that he was in any danger. He came out from under the desk, creeping up behind the shorter boy as he faced the open window.

“What are you hiding for?”

“I’m not hiding,” Jerome said, grinning, stepping up quickly and flashing the blade up to his throat. “Found you!”

Brucie’s shoulders stiffened under Jerome’s arms as he used the one not holding the scalpel to hold onto him. “Who are you?” he asked, sounding weirdly not-terrified.

“That’s the big question, isn’t it?”

“If you want money, I’ll give it to you. You don’t need to be violent.”

He laughed. “I don’t want money!” Well - No, stay on track. “I just got a funny feeling, you know when that happens? That I had to come find you, and cut your pretty pink throat.”

Brucie was silent for a couple of seconds. Jerome opened his mouth to goad him into talking, and then -

Wham! Suddenly, and confusingly, the short boy hit him in the arm, somehow making it let go of him, and he turned to punch Jerome in the stomach. He had a strong punch for a, what, twelve-year-old? But the redhead dodged it at the last second. Brucie didn’t stop. He grabbed Jerome’s wrist as he skipped back, moving his head out of the way of the fist and blade coming at it, and, pulling, kicked him, knocking Jerome to the floor.

“Ow,” he muttered, coughing a bit with the wind partially knocked out of him. He scrambled back up to his feet; Brucie had his fists up, but he was obviously too polite to hit a guy while he was down. Which was stupid of him. Jerome held the scalpel out in front of him, slightly hunched over and grinning. “Hell of a kick you got there. No knife, though.”

“What you have is hardly a knife.”

Jerome pushed his hair out of his face clumsily with his free hand. Now that he was looking at him, Brucie wasn’t a little kid any more. Probably somewhere around his own age, actually, if he had to guess for both of them. Less of a  _ Brucie _ and more of a  _ Bruce _ . The picture in the paper hadn’t done him any justice.

Anyway. Back to killing him, or, well, something. Jerome was feeling more and more confused about what he actually wanted here.

“I know you,” Bruce said, tilting his head in concentration. “You’re Jerome, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” He took a step forward, brandishing the scalpel.

“But - you’re dead.” He stepped back. “I watched you die.”

“Yeah,” he agreed again. “I was there too. But, uh, here we are! Exciting, huh?”

“Put down the weapon and I’ll make sure the police play nice with you.” Bruce stopped moving back, even as Jerome got close enough to make out the subtle difference in colour between his pupils and the dark brown of the rest of his eyes. The scalpel was hardly an inch away from the shorter boy’s chin, but those eyes weren’t afraid.

Now he knew why he’d come here. Bruce Wayne was fascinating in a way that nobody else was. Jerome wanted to know what made him tick. Bruce, he could see now, was special.

His mouth started to curl into a grin. It was cut off by an arm around his throat. 

He couldn’t breathe. Distantly, he registered the scalpel slipping out of his hand and clattering to the floor; he fought against the person behind him, scratching at the arm and its stranglehold on his neck. Bright spots filled his vision. This felt like another memory, almost - his struggling was familiar and reflexive. His feet slipped on the floor.

The attacker dropped him just before he passed out. Jerome tried to push himself up, but his arm betrayed him.  _ Stay down, _ he thought, heart going fast.  _ Don’t make him madder _ . He flipped onto his back and scrambled backward. It was a man who looked about fifty-something, wearing a suit. He put a protective hand on Bruce’s shoulder, glaring down and striding forward.

Jerome’s back hit the wall. He reached blindly up with one hand to try and grab onto something, try to pull himself to stand. The man kicked his arm down. He was cornered. His breath sped up. He couldn’t slow it down.

The bright spots came back. The man raised his foot again, and Jerome flinched right before he kicked him in the head, and then everything went black.


	3. Chapter 3

Oh God, his head was killing him. For the second time, he remembered. He could feel blood pounding in his temples, forcing him awake in spite of how heavy his eyes felt.

Right - everything came back to him (well, everything from yesterday, or whenever. Not actually everything, technically). Bruce, and the old guy. Shit, he’d passed out. What was going on now? He opened his eyes and looked around himself. He was sitting in a chair, arms tied to it; he was facing the corner and there was a doorway to the right of him. Beyond that, he couldn’t tell much about his whereabouts. What he was very sure of was that he was very uncomfortable.

(Which, that was really an understatement, because he didn’t know where he was, and some old guy had kicked him right in the head. And he’d just let him, flinched even, and he hated that. And he was scared, and he hated that too.)

Something moved behind him. Jerome tightened his jaw, refusing to look weak as Bruce came around in front of him. “Morning,” he grated out with a sharp grin. “Or whenever it is, obviously I don’t know -”

“What are you doing here?” Bruce cut him off.

He cleared his throat and his head twitched to the side involuntarily. “Sitting, mostly.”

“You know what I meant.”

It was fascinating, the look in Bruce’s eyes. So serious. Somebody needed to make this kid laugh for once. “Well, I guess I’m also talking to you, and -”

Rough hands landed on his shoulders, and this time Jerome couldn’t stop himself from jumping. He recognised the old guy’s voice: “You’re going to answer straight, or else you’re really not going to like what happens.”

Damn, like he was having fun now.

“Fine.” He rolled his eyes casually. “Like I told you, I had a feeling I had to put a knife to your throat.” The hands tightened on his shoulders. His chest seemed to tighten, too. “Other than that, I don’t know any more than you do.”

The old guy was starting to hurt him, and his eyes widened a little against his efforts. “Swear to God I don’t know,” he hurried out. “If I remembered I’d tell you. No reason not to at this point, right?” Bruce glared down at him, and his shoulders seized up under the old guy’s grip. “Look, I don’t wanna hurt you anymore, okay? I don’t remember, I swear.”

Finally, Bruce spoke. “Alfred, let go of him.”

Jerome let out a tense breath as the old guy - Alfred - did as he was told.

“You said you don’t remember,” Bruce continued. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t remember, what, d’you want it in another language or something?” he snapped.

Alfred shifted behind him, and he clenched his fists as his head twitched again.

Bruce looked at him with a calculating shine to his eyes. “How did you come back from the dead, Jerome?”

He shrugged.

“It’s possible that whatever brought him back had the side effect of blocking his memory,” the dark-haired boy said to Alfred.

“Or he’s lying.”

“No -” Bruce’s eyes met Jerome’s. “I believe him.”

Naive. Never believe anybody, that was the rule. He moved his hands slowly, looking for a knot to try and loosen on the rope around his wrists.

“What’s the last thing you remember about waking up?” Bruce asked him.

Jerome raised the eyebrow that wasn’t trapped underneath bandages. “I was in the police station.”

“Right,” Alfred scoffed. “And then he pulled off an impossible escape. He’s lying to you, Master Bruce.”

That was what he called him? Yikes. “Look, grandpa, you think I’d be in full cop costume right now otherwise?” He hadn’t found a knot yet.

“Alfred, can we talk?” Bruce pulled the old man aside, across the room behind Jerome. He got to work feeling around the ropes faster, biting his tongue absentmindedly.

“I don’t like this.” Alfred’s voice was hushed but still loud enough to hear.

“Neither do I - it’s strange. And this is the second time somebody’s been brought back…”

That was news. Who else?

“We should call the police. Odd or no, that psychopath belongs in prison.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Bruce agreed, sounding thoughtful.

“I’ll ring Gordon up, then, shall I?”

“Yes, alright -”

Finally, with a last pull at the ropes, Jerome was free. He didn’t wait to hear any more before he was stumbling out of the room and running at top speed down yet another long hallway. Shouting and footsteps pounded behind him, and he found himself climbing a flight of stairs as they seemed to get louder. It became clear that he wasn’t going to find a way out of the house - not now that he was up a whole level, certainly. He was going to have to hide. Of course, he was hiding from the people who lived in this house, so he was probably doomed either way.

Still, he had the feeling that he was a good hider.

Jerome opened a door at random and burst inside, shutting it quietly behind him. He was in a bedroom, huge with a double bed. He could see an attached bathroom through a half-open door, and he entered. The footsteps sounded awfully close. He lay down in the bathtub and pulled the curtain closed. Maybe he wasn’t so good at hiding. Hopefully he was good enough, at least for enough time to get out later.

Nobody came into the bedroom for a long time. His heart rate slowed down, but his throat hurt like hell from running, and he was still sore. The occasional twitches of his head and neck didn’t help that. It was cold in the bathtub; he wished he’d hidden somewhere warmer instead, but it didn’t make any sense to move now. He just wrapped his arms around himself and squeezed his eyes shut tight. Lost in thought, he didn’t even notice he was falling asleep until it had already happened.

And later, when Bruce Wayne gave up searching and went to his bedroom, he noticed that the shower curtain was drawn closed when he hadn’t left it that way. Despite the noise of it opening, Jerome didn’t wake up.


End file.
